mellifera

During the past week Nonnatus Korhonen and Neurone Schism have been meeting to close down the ‘terra-mellifera’ eco-system and clear the landscape. Part of this process has been a farewell to resident independent agent: Essential Beeswing – at least for the present anyway. For many months Essential has greeted visiting avatars, summoned the ‘mellifera’ and […]

A look at stills from the early stages of the generative video to be included in ‘mellifera_extensions’ at the RMIT VR Centre gallery. Andrew and I are spending 10 days extensively workshopping extensions to earlier incarnations of ‘mellifera’. We have been invited to show this work as part of the Drawing Out Conference exhibition programme being […]

‘mellifera_extensions’ will move on from the earlier exhibition last year at ‘the block’ and on-line. Please join us at RMIT Virtual Reality Centre gallery of you are in Melbourne or inworld if not. There will  also be a one off screening at Federation Square on Thursday 8 April, following the show opening and forum earlier […]

The TAXA opening was well attended and the VR centre proved to be an exciting venue to show in. The many mobile plasma screens available facilitated the structure of the installation in both of the gallery rooms. Here a documentary video of ‘machina carnis’ is playing in the first room. HOST was also projected large-scale in […]

It was an evening of participant experimentation both at the gallery and inworld (Photos by Keith Novak):

The show was opened by Andrew Donovan, Director: New Media Arts Board, Australia Council for the Arts which funded the project and Australian Chief Scientist: Penny Sackett along with Queensland Chief Scientist: Peter Andrews.

I will be presenting my arts/research: “Pluripotent Stem Cells: an artist grows her own…” at the “Eye of the Storm” 2 day Symposium on scientific controversy at Tate Britain. I will be speaking about my adult stem cell project: ‘machina carnis’ during which I cultured adult stem cells from my blood and carried out an experiment […]

Essential is non-gendered and we use the Old English term of “ou” rather than “he” or “she” in this context.  Mute tho Essential may be, ou is far from dumb – moving through a pattern of activities in ‘mellifera’ or reflecting on some other-worldly concern known ownly to ouself; what is it about this being that […]

Such wonderment awaits the intrepid voyager both within and without the metaverse! For neurone schism gaffa gallery was the scene of much exploration and excitement in the company of her trusty collaborator nonnatus and other revellers on the night of 16th March. Supported by the worthy investigators from the Australia Council for the Arts new life-forms […]

At the Biotech Art Revisited show in Adelaide next week I will be exhibiting my DVD installation: “Changing Fates_matrilineal”. This is a work that explores both the biological and material aspects of embodiment. I have referenced writing and artefacts left behind by my grandmother: Mollie, juxtaposed with digital videomicrograph image data of adult stem cells taken […]

Yesterday Julie had decided to add another storey to our bees’ accommodation and so when i arrived today to check the Piezo i was amazed to find this big loop of bees around the entry to the hive. At first it looked as if the bees were climbing all over each other to get back […]

Before meeting Julie at the ‘bee house’ i took another sound recording from the Piezo. It’s not turning out as we had hoped but more of that in a minute… Julie once more helped me by opening up the hive & lifting out the frame with the Piezo inserted in it. As you can see […]

Today I met Julie and we opened up the hive. After the usual preliminary smoking proceedure she lifted out the frame where the piezo frame was embedded in the wax. Things have certainly changed since the last time she looked & told me that the bees were avoiding the piezo area!! Lots of honey making […]

On Monday 13th October, with the help of researcher Julie Lim, the frame with the Piezo Mic embedded in the wax was inserted into a hive. After smoking the hive to calm the bees Julie took out the first frame full of honey Then we put the new Piezo frame at the front. Finally Julie […]

The shift from culturing my own stem cells in the laboratory to observing bees at the ‘bee-house’, Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) might, initially, seem like quite an arbitrary one. Certainly my knowledge about bee behaviours when I began my residency with the Visual and Sensory Neuroscience group at QBI was pretty average – social communities; queens, drones & workers; swarming and painful stings probably about summed it up! …

A short introductory text by Trish